The Philadelphia Flyers aim to keep their playoffs alive when they meet the host Winnipeg Jets Saturday night.
Before Thursday’s match against Pittsburgh, Flyer’s six points were from a playoffs and went on a promising three-game winning line. They built a 3-0 lead over Penguins, but were still discontinued a 5-4 overtime loss that maintained their six-point deficit.
Despite the disappointing defeat, Flyer’s head coach John Tortorella remained positive about his team’s performance.
“Other than seven or eight minutes we did very good things,” said tortorella. “Our third period was really good … It’s not one of these games … I really liked a lot of what we did.”
With only 22 games left in the regular season, the flyer knows that they have to get points quickly. While the loss to Pittsburgh sticks, the team remains focused on the next match.
“It’s an unfortunate loss,” said ahead Matvei Michkov through an interpreter after the match. “In overtime, that goal wasn’t good. It was a little wrong communication … We can’t afford that such mistakes. We get ready for the next game. We have to win next.”
However, jets are in a much stronger position. Jets leads the Western conference with 11 points and has the best record in NHL to three points ahead of the Eastern Conference-leading Washington.
With 22 matches left, their goal is much different from the flyer. It is more about fine-tuning their game than scraping to survive when they aim to win their first Stanley Cup since the beginning of the franchise and the first for a Canadian team since Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
Jets’ franchise record 11-game winning line ended Thursday in Nashville, where they lost to Predators 2-1. Despite the setback, defender Neal Pionk is optimistic about the team’s ability to bounce back.
“Start a new line,” Pionk said when asked about the upcoming game against Philadelphia. “Like every game, win or lose, we reflect on it, learn from it, wash it away and come back after it on Saturday.”
One area that Jets will focus on improving is their power play. Although they are first ranked in the league at 30.9 percent, Jets has failed to score on his last 16 power play opportunities.
“We changed some things around,” said Jets coach Scott Arniel. “We had some good looks, but sometimes it just doesn’t go in. It’s part of the season, and we will stick to it. We have some things to work with, but we continue to look at it.”
Flyers could be without forward the yarn Hathaway, who took a blind side from Pittsburgh’s Boko Imama on Thursday. Tortorella called it “one of the dirtiest hits (he is) seen for a while”, and Hathaway needed help leaving the ice.
Jets can move forward Morgan Barron back from an upper body injury. He is close to playing for the first time since January 28.
-Field level media
